Tag: recipes

Hi again gluttons. here I am again hoping to tickle your fancy or fan your flames with with gluts of lettuce!

This week a friend of mine enquired “would you like a lettuce”? Now, I’m as enamoured with green leaves as the next man – or woman-, but a crate of them? My flames were duly fanned, I was overwhelmed with gluttony and the creative juices began to flow.

Serve with fresh crusty granary bread and a large glass of Chardonnay.

Melt butter in a pan fry the shallots, until soft, but not brown. Add the shredded lettuce, pour over the wine or stock, cover with baking paper and a lid. Simmer for 4-5mins. Remove from pan, season and divide between the 4 dishes. Place the eggs on top of each dish.

Sauce.

25g Butter.

1 Rounded tbspn plain flour

100g Blue Cheese, use up those left over bits lurking in the fridge.

400ml Milk, warmed.

Melt the butter, add the flour, cook stirring for 2 mins.

Slowly add the warmed milk, continue to stir until the sauce thickens.

Hi Foodies. Here’s some food for thought. Our food costs us our hard-earned cash. Why do we throw it away? Hopefully through this series of blogs, I can give you some ideas to save money and provide you with some delicious, homemade healthy food made using leftover food.

Are you being driven Bananas?

Food Waste. Love your Leftovers

Hi again Foodies. Does your fruit bowl often look like this? Mangy looking bananas that no-one wants, or the half mouldy furry apples. What are you going to do with them? Throw them in in bin adding to the mountain of food we waste each year or make them into a delicious high fibre pud, which will have your family begging for more.

The recipe below is of my own creation, which I served in my cake shop last week. Served warm, straight from the oven topped with a scoop of my homemade rich custard Gelato it had the customers drooling & begging for the recipe. I told them if they followed this blog it would pop up one day. So, if you are out there reading this, here you are. Please leave me a comment below & let me know you have made it.

Everyone is now into “grow your own” but what do you do with that glut of tomatoes and the mint that is threatening to over take your herb garden. What about that of a box of veg on the market stall that you can’t resist because it’s a bargain? The answer foodies, is make it into a delicious homemade soup, which can be served hot or on ice.

Soup is not just for winter, cold soups are very refreshing in the summer. Just imaging picnicing by a babbling brook with a glass of wine and a chilled thermos of Minted Tomato & Yoghurt soup served with home-made Parmesan crackers – made with that bit of leftover cheese – you where going to throw away.

Everyone loves a Burger, but for the vegetarian & gluten-free among us they are a definite NO. NO. Well guys, with the recipe below you can use up your leftovers & whip up a tasty burger tonight which will be part of your healthy eat plan and your 10 a day. What more can you want.

Place the cauliflower in a food processor & pulse until smooth. Add the potatoes, cheese, garlic, nutmeg & seasoning. Pulse lightly until the mixture binds, but still has some texture. Turn out onto a chopping board, shape into a fat sausage & cut into 4 equal burgers. Put onto a plate, cover with cling film & chill for 30 mins.

Place the beaten egg in a saucer & the Polenta in another saucer. Dip the burgers first in the egg & then coat with the Polentta. Cove & chill again for 30 mins.

Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan & fry over a medium heat for 10 mins, turning frequently, until golden.

Serve with Rocket & Pea shoot salad, Sprinkled with Parmesan Cheese OR, in my next blog you can make my Ratatouille which is also Gluten-free & Vegetarian.

I love a wrap, they are very useful things, which lend themselves to a quick healthy meal, depending, what you put in them, of course. Wraps can be both sweet or savoury, hot or cold, personally I like mine, cooked on a Panini toaster, or in a dry, non stick frying pan.

Wraps are available in white, wholemeal, white & wheat ?! and multi seeded, my favourite, they also come flavoured with an assortment of different herbs & spices. You can also make your own, which I sometimes do using a mixture of Spelt & Multi grain flour. I tend not to add any flavourings as they can then be used with either sweet or savoury fillings.

Which ever variety you choose, always go for the best quality, as the cheaper brands tend to be rather tough & when toasted have the consistency of cardboard.

In the photo above, I used leftover Pork from last Sunday’s roast, thinly sliced green pepper, chopped spring onion & smoked garlic as the filling. I spread Sweet Chilli Chutney, from the marvellous Pot of What range of chutney’s & pickles over the wrap, popped the filling in the middle & folded the wrap, to completely enclose the filling.

Quickly toasted & served with a beansprout, carrot & apple salad drizzled with fresh lime juice & Sesame oil, The wrap made a substantial, healthy supper dish, which was ready in minutes, had quite a ring of a non greasy pancake roll about it.

Right cookies, get creative & make some for yourself. There are a few suggestions below, but really, your fridge holds the ingredients.

Generations past knew how to plan meals and feed their families with out wastage. The disposal of unwanted food was unheard of. It was commonplace for people to grow their own veg and shopped on a daily basis, weekly meals were planned, making use of food stuff that were in season, but most importantly, people knew how to cook.

None of us can afford, or need to throw away food, but in today’s fast-moving consumer society we are encouraged to purchase and discard everything from televisions to tomatoes.

Although we are time poor, with a little planing and less impulse buying it is possible to eat well and turn those left overs into quick nutritious meals.

In this series of blogs on Love your left overs, I hope I can give you some ideas which may help you get creative with your food and save you from making your pooch porky, emptying the waste bin so often or pondering on what goes into recycling.

Love your left overs. Put them in me.

Get creative with the Basic Quiche recipe.

Basic Shortcrust pastry. Serves 6.

225g Plain Flour.

Pinch of salt.

50g Butter or Margarine

50g Vegetable Fat or 50ml Vegetable oil

4 tbspns Cold Water.

Place the flour, salt, butter & veg fat in the food processor ( If using oil add at the end with the water).

Process until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.

Remove lid & add the water – & oil – if using, to the centre of the mixture & process until the mixture comes together & forms a ball. DO NOT over process.

Wrap the pastry loosely in cling film & rest in fridge, while assembling the filling.

All my life, one way or another I have been involved with food. I know, we all have, we need to eat to stay alive, but my love of food goes a bit deeper. I have written & tested recipes all my life and am rather long in the tooth, so it has been some time.

Cooking, yes I have done that too, not just for my own family but other peoples families, christenings, shoots, tea parties, weddings, diets and for retail shops. You name it I have probably done it.

Now my family has grown and long since fled the warmth of my kitchen I have turned my hand to the world of Social Media & the blog.

I run a web site wiltshireartisans.com in which I endeavour to support & promote small rural food producers from Wiltshire and also publish weekly recipes, which incorporates the products of the said producers. I am also very active on all the usual media sites. Please pop over & take a look if you have a mo.

This blog is really digging a bit deeper into food, its producers & its origins. Each week I will publish something here related to the subject.

Next week, after my little sojourn in the county of Suffolk I will be reviewing a few establishments and sharing with you my ramblings about this mesmerising county.